pola-rs/polars · error · NoDataError

empty Excel sheet\n\nIf you want to read this as an empty Da

Error message

empty Excel sheet\n\nIf you want to read this as an empty DataFrame, set `raise_if_empty=False`.

What it means

NoDataError raised by _empty_frame after the Excel reader produced a zero-row, zero-column result. It means the sheet exists but contains no data; the message points at raise_if_empty=False as the way to accept an empty DataFrame instead.

Source

Thrown at py-polars/src/polars/io/spreadsheet/functions.py:1013

                ):
                    null_cols.append(col_name)
        if null_cols:
            df = df.drop(*null_cols)

    if df.height == df.width == 0:
        return _empty_frame(raise_if_empty)
    if drop_empty_rows:
        return df.filter(~F.all_horizontal(F.all().is_null()))
    return df


def _empty_frame(raise_if_empty: bool) -> pl.DataFrame:  # noqa: FBT001
    if raise_if_empty:
        msg = (
            "empty Excel sheet"
            "\n\nIf you want to read this as an empty DataFrame, set `raise_if_empty=False`."
        )
        raise NoDataError(msg)
    return pl.DataFrame()


def _reorder_columns(
    df: pl.DataFrame, columns: Sequence[int] | Sequence[str] | None
) -> pl.DataFrame:
    if columns:
        from polars.selectors import by_index, by_name

        cols = (
            by_index(*columns)
            if is_non_empty_sequence_of(columns, int)
            else by_name(*columns)
        )
        df = df.select(cols)
    return df

View on GitHub (pinned to 5d8ebabf11)

Solutions

1. Set raise_if_empty=False to read the empty sheet as an empty DataFrame, or point to a non-empty sheet.

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at py-polars/src/polars/io/spreadsheet/functions.py:1010 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of pola-rs/polars@5d8ebabf11 (2026-08-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5d2ca7bf0533fae4. Report an issue: GitHub.